Van’t Schip seething after City shellacking

Melbourne City coach John van’t Schip says he is not making any excuses for his side’s 3-0 loss to Western Sydney.

Nothing went right for the red side of Melbourne, a double substitution at half-time indicative of their average evening; Aaron Hughes was taken off due to injury and Steve Kuzmanovski had a poor first half.

The home fans left feeling dirty as controversy surrounding the Wanderers second goal and an ambiguous decision from a linesman soured the air.

City manager John van’t Schip however was not going to be drawn into conclusions.

“Look, it’s not important, it’s already done, the flag went up. For me, clearly if the linesman puts up the flag and he keeps it up quite significantly, then yeah, players stopped and because of that, they scored a goal.

“Maybe they would have scored anyway, but that was why players stopped and I can understand that if the linesman just puts up the flag like that, so that was my reading of it.”

Despite the set backs, the Dutchman was quick to put himself up as accountable for the performance.

“We all had to be responsible for that and I’m the first one, so I’m not happy at all and I’ll analyse what we did wrong in preparing the team in the right way, ready for this game but we were clearly not ready and not on our front feet,” he said.

“It’s my responsibility, it was a poor performance of our side and a performance from me.”

City went into the match with several key players missing. Aaron Mooy was out on international duty whilst Robert Koren, Ivan Franjic and David Williams are still injured.

Van’t Schip was asked whether Mooy’s absence made it impossible for City to dish up a decent level of football, but despite the significant outs, Van’t Schip was not going easy on his side.

“If you look today, then you’re not far from the truth, but that’s an easy one after a game like this, it was our worst performance since I’ve coached here at a home game at least,” he said.

“We can come up with why and one of that could be what you’re saying but again, that’s not an excuse.”

Being completely outclassed and outshone, van’t Schip will be looking to bounce back against Brisbane Roar away from home next week.

If there is one positive for Melbourne City it’s that they have not lost a game outside of Melbourne this season.

Currently studying at Deakin University in Melbourne, Clem has experience writing on AFL and has worked at Preston Leader Newspapers in Victoria. He loves reporting, spectating, discussing and playing both AFL and football.